Pricing the conflict into my listing agreement, sixth deal with the same brokerage
I've got two rehabs finishing inside three weeks and I'm renegotiating my listing agreement with the brokerage I've used for the last five. They want 2.5 on the listing side plus the ability to designate an in-house agent to any buyer who walks in through their own marketing, which they say happens on roughly one in four of their listings in this price band.
Last deal was exactly that. In-house buyer, in-house listing, 4.8 total to the firm on a 341k sale. It closed clean and eight days early. I have no complaint about execution and I still think I left money on the table, because the buyer's agent had every reason to close rather than push, and I never saw a second offer to test the first one against.
What I'm drafting is a clause that cuts the listing side to 1.75 in any transaction where the buyer's agent is designated from inside the same firm. Rationale is that the firm's total take goes up in that scenario while the work of finding an outside cooperating broker goes away. I ran it past them informally and got a long pause, which I read as negotiable.
The part I'm unsure of is whether that clause creates a perverse incentive in the other direction, pushing them to route in-house interest away from my listings so the fee stays whole. Losing a real buyer to protect 75 basis points would be a bad trade on a 341k house.
Alternative I'm weighing is leaving the fee alone and instead requiring written notice 24 hours before any designated in-house buyer submits, plus a five day minimum on the market before I'll look at any offer at all. That buys the second look I didn't get last time without touching their economics.
Still deciding which one to put in front of them, and whether these state disclosure forms have any teeth on the notice question or if I have to write it into the contract myself.